


Tales from Winghead Bookstore

by yuniesan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bucky runs the cafe, Don’t copy to another site, F/F, F/M, M/M, Meet-Cute, Natasha runs the Children's section, Phil is the assistant manager, Sam works as a barista, Steve owns the store, Steve's Nana is a powerhouse, They read romance novels, Thor is the security guard, Tony is a College Professor by day, and head of R&D by night, and she has a book club with Tony, he's still a Stark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-12-27 02:17:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21111062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuniesan/pseuds/yuniesan
Summary: Steve Rogers is the owner of a New York City bookstore called Wingheads Books, all it takes is one Instagram post from Tony Stark, he swears the account is fake, to make his store a popular attraction. But can there also be attraction between Steve and the man behind the Instagram post?





	1. The Bookstore Owner and the College Professor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [baneme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baneme/gifts).

> So I got the idea because of baneme’s art on Steve being a bookstore owner ( https://baneme-art.tumblr.com/post/188388776427/stevetony-au-where-steve-owns-a ) and it morphed into this dorky thing.  
It's probably a mess, and all over the place, but I wrote this while at work and just wanted to share, maybe I'll edit it later, unless everyone thinks it's okay.  
I used to work at Borders so I would like to keep writing one-shots in this verse using what I know about working in a bookstore.... let me tell you I have horror stories from working at a bookstore, but it was a lot of fun, and I'm also sure that my store in particular was haunted but that's a story for another day.

Taking over the bookstore from his Grandmother had been his dream, so when she had decided to move to warm climates, she had called Steve. Honestly, he wasn’t sure why she hadn’t done it sooner, he loved his Nana with everything in him, but he couldn’t understand why she hadn’t retired earlier. He had been going to school upstate near the army base that he had been stationed at and had finished up his degree in Art. He had been in the army for ten years and had made friends from all over the country, some of which had left the army for one reason or another, after he was done he had gone back to school, so there he was now in his thirties and the owner of his own store. 

When he had told Bucky that he was moving back to the city, well Buck was happy to hear that he had finally decided to leave the army. Bucky had left when he had been twenty-five, after losing his arm in active combat, though now he sported a prototype arm from Stark Industries. Bucky swore that it was better than having a real hand, though he had it tattooed with all kinds of things, so no one actually thought it was fake at all. Bucky had taken over his parents’ café, which was next door to Steve’s Nana’s bookstore, and so the two of them thought that they could combine the two stores and create a staple bookstore in the heart of the city. Both were close to several nearby colleges and they constantly had students in the store, so why not have one store altogether. 

So, that summer, once Steve moved back to New York and into the upstairs apartment his Nana had left for him, because Brooklyn was too expensive to live in, and she had the apartment so why should he have to look for a place to stay. She was always taking care of him and he was honestly grateful for it, he had enough saved up because of this to remodel the store. After seeing his Nana off at the airport, she was going to live with his parents in Florida, his father worked down there as a liaison between the company he worked for called Resilient and Nasa. It took two months to make the whole thing work, they needed permission from the owner, even though Nana had said that they would be alright with the remodel, they needed supplies, and lastly, they needed more workers for the expanded space. The store before had only been run by his Nana and two other people, both of which had decided to work somewhere else. 

The first person that was hired was Bucky’s girlfriend, and their childhood friend Natasha, she promptly said that she would take care of the children’s section, which only made Steve wary of her command. The second person to come in was Thor, who had wanted a more relaxed job than the one he had as a bodyguard, so Steve made him the head of security, because he didn’t have the money to install more than three cameras and the store was now three times the size it had once been. The third was Phil Coulson, who his Nana loved, but had gone to work at some chain store because he had needed more money and didn’t want to take it from the sweet old woman. Steve had given him an Assistant Manager position, the man was good with organization and Steve needed someone like that because he wanted to actually be in the store and not stuck in the back. The last person had been their old army friend Sam, who had just gotten out of his service because of an accident involving his wingman, but Steve knew that Sam and Riley had had something going on, they had kept it quiet but losing him had broken something inside of Sam. 

Steve knew that they were enough to run the store, they had a few part-timers, like Darcy and Peter, but the full-time staff was all there. These were people he’d known for years, he trusted them more than anyone in his own family and he was glad that they would give up huge salaries to work with him. 

And with that, Winghead Bookstore was finally reopened on a rainy late September day, and of course the weather played a role in people coming in, some for coffee others to get out of the horrible weather. Some people were happy that the store had been reopened and that it hadn’t been taken over by some chain, others loved the fact that the coffee shop was now a part of it, though Bucky said that only paying customers could stay there for more than a half an hour. Steve knew that it was his way of making more money for the store. 

“How do you think it’s going?” Natasha asked him as they watched everyone walk around looking through the books, or drinking coffee. 

“I think we’ll be here for a very long time,” he answered, hoping that the owner of the building wouldn’t raise their rent too much in the next year. 

“I think so too,” she said before walking off to the little area they had made into the children’s section, complete with silly carpet and everything. 

After a while the rush died down, Thor smiled happily from the door, especially when his boyfriend had shown up, which surprised Steve because he hadn’t thought to ask Thor about his life. Though if Thor looked as happy as he was then Steve couldn’t fault him anything. He greeted customers and walked around, every once and a while grabbing a book off the shelf and looking through it. 

Sam and Bucky had started nagging him on it, “You’re supposed to be sellin’ them not readin’ them,” Bucky called out from the café, his Brooklyn accent coming out as he said it. Natasha smirking next to him as she shelved a few books. 

He hadn’t noticed the man sitting at the café with a cup of coffee in front of him taking a picture, but when the shot had started trending an hour later, and Peter had come rushing over, Steve wondered how he had missed the whole thing happening. 

“It’s because your head was stuck inside of a book,” Natasha said as they packed everything away in the back. “Though I don’t know who took it, the account that posted it could be a fake, I mean how can we miss someone as famous as Tony Stark inside of this store.” 

“You’re right about that especially when it said it was their favorite place,” he sighed as he finished the last of the cash counts and smiled at how much they had made. It was only the first day, they wouldn’t have this kind of business all of the time. “Plus, the caption said that this was their favorite place, we’ve only been open for a day.” 

“Yeah but your Nan ran it for a long time, so for all you know they’ve been here before,” she countered and it made him think if it were possible, but that couldn’t have been right, he had worked at the store every summer since he was fourteen, and not once had he seen anyone remotely famous come inside. 

“Well let's hope that the post brings in more people,” he said pushing his thoughts and their conversation aside. 

If all it had taken was one picture to send the store into a frenzy, he would have done it himself, though the person who had taken it had apparently come back several times because there were all kinds of photos on the so-called Instagram page of one Tony Stark. The account wasn’t even verified, there was no way that it was his to begin with, but it was good for business, and it hadn’t stopped any of his friends from teasing him since a lot of the pictures had happened to be him with a book or helping someone. Whoever it was, according to Natasha, had a crush on him and while he was flattered it almost felt like stalking. 

* * *

If anyone had told him that he would be teaching part-time and working as the head of research and development for Stark Industries at the same time, well Tony would have laughed it off. But in reality, that’s exactly what he was doing, because his parents ran the company and Tony honestly wanted to just invent. They allowed him that much, he was still young, he didn’t need to be the head of the company just yet. So, he taught at one of the local colleges, even though NYU had wanted him but he really couldn’t deal with their need to exploit his family name. 

He had spent his whole life in New York, the only time he had left was to go to M.I.T. to get his degrees, and when that had been done, he had promptly come back. There was something about the crazy nature of the city that appealed to him, even when his one favorite spot as a kid had been a local bookstore that was run by this little old grandmother. He had hidden in there for years while in high school, and when her grandson had come to help, he had stayed hidden. It wasn’t that he was shy or anything, and maybe he had harbored a crush for the blonde, but that hadn’t mattered, he had been twelve and on his way to graduating high school. 

When he had heard that little old Mrs. Rogers was about to lose the store, Tony had started his own company, he had been sixteen and at school, but had come home for the summer to hang out with Pepper, May, Jan and Rhodey, all of which were twenty and for some reason were okay with having a sixteen year old troublemaker as a friend. He had started Resilient that summer, it was a part of Stark Industries, but it worked on technologies that helped countries that needed medical help or making long lasting solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems. He honestly didn’t want to be known for making weapons, but he had used his own inheritance to buy one New York City block its buildings and all, modernize the structures and make them more eco-friendly, so that Mrs. Rogers could keep running her store. She had treated him like one of her own, and he was going to protect her like she was his own grandmother. 

That had been the last summer he had seen Mrs. Rogers’ teenage grandson, she had told Tony that he had joined the military. He had kept up with her, built his own library by buying books from her store, and even converted one of the houses down the street into his own home. She had made him feel welcome in a world of high school bullies, because he had been a kid genius and no one really wanted him to succeed. 

Much to his disappointment, she had told him that she was going to move down south with her son and his wife, but she was leaving the store to her grandson. The same one Tony had a crush on all those years ago, and for some reason she was hinting at something. 

“This old lady would love to see her grandson settle down one day,” she had told him when he had come in that day. He wasn’t sure if it had happened or if he had hallucinated the whole thing. So, he had made a deal with himself that the day Steve took over, he would go over there and talk to him at least. 

Except that hadn’t happened, as it turned out the store and the café next door had been closed down due to repairs, which left Tony without his books and his coffee for the whole summer. 

“I still can’t believe that the great Tony Stark is moping because he wants to read romance novels and drink coffee with little old Mrs. Rogers,” Rhodey said while Bruce laughed in the background. Both him and Bruce had been working on their fall syllabuses, all the while Tony invented something in the background. 

“Don’t make fun of me Rhodey, or I’ll tell Carol about all of your moping when she had gotten deployed two years ago, and you didn’t get to go with her because you had broken your leg and had to do physical therapy.” 

“You wouldn’t dare,” Rhodey said getting up as fast as possible to close the door. “You promised that you would never tell her.” 

“Then stop making fun of me,” he countered. Rhodey had enough material against Tony from being friends for so long, but Tony had just enough ammunition to get back at him a few times. 

“Stop bickering,” Bruce said, a smile still on his face. 

“I’ll tell Thor everything I know about you and then some if you start with me Banner,” Tony said before turning back towards his project. 

“Okay, let leave Tony alone before he spills all of our secrets,” Bruce said before dragging Rhodey out of the workshop. 

The semester had started before the store had reopened, and Tony had to settle with going to a different bookstore all summer and brewing his own coffee. Yeah, he could do that, but he had money, why not have someone else do it for him. Plus, the Barnes coffee shop had some kind of crack in their coffee and Tony needed it at least once a day to function. 

It had been raining on opening day, and Tony had rushed into the store just a few hours before closing, his hair a mess and his glasses on because he hadn’t bothered with his contacts after his last class was over. Ordering his favorite coffee from the counter and sitting down to look at the stack of books he had picked up, trying to figure out which ones he wanted. Mrs. Rogers had sent him an email telling him to catch up on his reading before she came to visit during Christmas, so that they could talk about them. He wasn’t going to argue with the little old lady, especially since she was the reason, he had started reading romance all of those years ago. 

That’s when he saw him, standing in one of the nearby aisles while reading a book that had been on the shelf, Tony had never seen the tall blonde wearing glasses before, but if Tony could wear contacts well anyone could. It had been years since he’d seen Steve Rogers, even as a teenager he hadn’t been able to approach him, but he had always remembered the smile on Steve’s face whenever he had helped out his grandmother. Tony took a picture and smiled as he posted it to his Instagram page, before getting a message from Rhodey to come over for dinner. He ended up buying all of the books, it had been an impulse decision, he hadn’t really been thinking, though Rhodey making fun of him for buying so much just made him scowl. 

The next morning as his students walked into class, he saw that his phone had a million notifications from Instagram, he couldn’t check his account, not when he had a classroom filled with students, but he would look at it later. 

After that, he had made it a habit to show up at the store every other day, he read faster than most people anyway, and he was always going to need a book. Though he had restricted himself to only one book for every visit, or just coffee if nothing caught his eye. He tried not to always take pictures of Steve, he didn’t want to feel like a stalker, he really didn’t, but that weird childhood crush had come back with a vengeance and he couldn’t help himself. Luckily for him, Bruce would be there with him most days, they would take a table and order coffee just to grade papers, or talk about their classes. 

* * *

“Did you know that Tony Stark come here almost every day,” he heard someone whispering, but Steve knew that it had to be a lie, there was no way that someone like Tony Stark could show up in a place like this. 

He had seen him in the gossip rags they sold, the face was noticeable and honestly why would Tony Stark waste his time on a small independent bookstore when his family had as much money as they did. He turned away from the group and focused on fixing the broken shelf that had been in front of him. One of their regulars, who had been trying to flirt with Darcy, had accidentally fallen into the shelf and broken it, and Steve just wanted to deal with that and not the constant rumors of whether Stark was coming into the store or not. 

“What did that shelf ever do to you?” someone asked as Steve put the final nail into the shelf. 

“Nothing, it’s just been a long day,” Steve answered, never turning to greet the person, it had really been one of those days, but it wasn’t his fault, he hadn’t gotten enough sleep, and not he was wondering if he actually had a stalker posing as Tony Stark. 

“I’ve had a few of those,” the man said and Steve wasn’t sure if he should keep talking or if he should actually keep working, but he had to be nice to everyone who came into the store, his grandmother had taught him that. Plus, it’s was proving to be a nice distraction at the moment, which of course changed the moment he turned and came face to face with Tony fucking Stark. 

He was too shocked to noticed that he hadn’t fully put the shelf back on correctly and the thing fell down and hit his foot, “Fuck,” he yelled out, jumping up and down. 

“Not too loud, the kids can hear you,” Natasha called out from the next aisle over. 

“Sorry,” he grunted as he sat on the floor and rubbed his big toe through his shoe. 

“I should be the one who’s sorry, I distracted you,” Stark said to him and Steve really wasn’t sure whether or not he was hallucinating, because after weeks of Instagram posts on the store he was sure that he had someone stalking him. Although Stark could just be there trying to verify why someone was using his name to post pictures of a New York bookstore. 

Steve made sure the shelf was back in where it was supposed to be, before putting all of the books back and turning to the very real Tony Stark standing right there next to him, who had for some reason helped him out. He wasn’t sure if Stark was going to sue him for using his name as advertisement, or if the man was genuinely just being helpful. 

“Anyway, I thought I should come here and apologize for my picture posts,” Stark said and Steve knew that someone was messing with him, there was no way that Tony Stark actually came into the store. “Someone told me to stop being stupid and actually talk to you.” 

“Wait,” Steve said looking the other man in the eye, “The account, on Instagram, it’s actually yours?” 

“Uh, yeah, who else would have Tony Stark as their user name if it wasn’t me.” 

“But it’s not verified, we all thought that it was fake,” he still did, he was hallucinating this whole encounter. 

“I’m not going to have it verified, my assistant controls my regular account which is verified, but that one, well it was supposed to be a private post, and I accidentally made it public, but since it was bringing in business I just kept going.” 

“Stop,” Steve said slowing the man down, “Slow down, why would you want to give us business, we don’t even know you.” 

“Oh,” Stark said and Steve could see the man blushing, they were the same age he was sure of that, so why would Stark be embarrassed over this. “Well, actually, um, I know the person who used to run this place.” 

“You know my grandmother,” Steve said shocked at what he was hearing. “How do you know my grandmother?” 

“We have a book club, well not anymore since she moved, though she sends me recommendations, but anyway, she was the first real friend I had when I was a kid, she always told me to read something other than those science journals or the mechanic books I read.” 

“My grandmother is friends with Tony Stark... how did I not know this, I worked here every summer in high school.” 

If there was one thing that Tony was never sure about, well it was his brain to mouth filter, because according to Pepper he didn’t have one and had the tendency to tell the world everything. Well not to everyone, just his friends, and apparently now his childhood crush because he really couldn’t stop himself. 

“I know,” he blurted out and he would have smacked himself if not for self-preservation. “I mean... she talked about you, and I saw you sometimes, but I was always in some corner or on my way out and I never got introduced, because I went to M.I.T.,” seriously why couldn’t he stop talking. 

“But how are you friends with my grandmother outside of that,” Steve asked him and Tony should just tell the guy everything, because why have secrets at all. “I mean I understand the book club thing, she had a couple of them.” 

“I was ten when I found this place, and I kept coming in here and buying things, it’s weird and I could probably tell you a million things, but let's just say that she treated me kinder than most people, I was the youngest kid in my class, it’s the whole genius thing, but she just treated me like a kid who liked to read.” 

Why couldn’t he stop talking, he couldn’t understand this, but he kept going, “I didn’t have grandparents either, so it was nice, and then she tells me stories about what it was like growing up, and we started the book club, it’s not really a club when there’s two of us but she wanted me to have something that wasn’t tied to me being well who I am.” 

Honestly if he could he would slam his head against the bookcase that Steve had just fixed, if it weren’t for the fact that the guy had just fixed the damn thing. What was wrong with him, he didn’t even know the guy, this was the kind of thing he only did with someone he liked, which hadn’t happened in a long time, not since his last relationship with Pepper but that had ended years ago and they were better friends than anything, and he liked Pepper’s girlfriend enough to not piss either of them off. 

“Okay, so that was embarrassing and I’m just going to go now,” Tony said wanting to walk away from the one guy he had a crush on since he was twelve, but it didn’t matter, he just embarrassed himself right there and there was no coming back from that. 

Steve couldn’t figure out if Tony Stark was a real person, he had just blurted out a million things that Steve really shouldn’t know, and yet he found it oddly adorable. Even more now that he knew that the Tony his grandmother had talked about him meeting one day was actually the same one standing in front of him. His grandmother was always a matchmaker, she always wanted her grandchildren to have nothing but happiness, hell Steve was sure that his cousins all met their significant others because of their grandmother’s meddling. 

There was also the fact that a flustered Tony Stark was a turn on for him for some reason, although this whole encounter could just be in his head, but he hadn’t hit his head he only hit his foot, so that whole hallucination thing was not entirely possible at the moment. 

“Don’t go,” he called out, stopping the other man from leaving before they even said something remotely normal to one another. “Sorry, it’s just that, well you’ve given us all of this free publicity,” that was a stupid thing to say. “And I just want to thank you for it,” because honestly, he thought the whole thing was a joke. “So, if you don’t mind, do you want to have some coffee,” as if he didn’t get the stuff for free. He really couldn’t keep up with the internal monologue in his own head. 

“How about dinner,” Tony said with a smile on his face, and that was what did it for him, all Tony had to do was smile at him and Steve was putty in the man’s hands. 

“Sure, tomorrow night,” Steve answered. 

“I’ll be here,” Tony said before nodding and walking away, a book in one hand as the other rubbed the back of his neck. 

Steve honestly couldn’t believe it, he has a date with Tony Stark, the very real owner of that Instagram post that Steve was sure had been a joke or something. 


	2. One Hospital Stop Later (Or The Day Steve had to Stop Natasha from killing a Customer)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes.... things happen that are beyond our control, and other times Steve has to stop Natasha from killing someone, even when Tony gets hurt in the process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back by popular demand, it's a good thing I know things about working at a bookstore..... too many things

There he was sitting in the hospital waiting room, wondering how everything had gotten out of hand so fast. It had been a regular day he had been thinking about whether that dinner with Tony had been a date or just what it was dinner. People were buying books, and everything was going smoothly, he had even taken the time to look at one of those books his college roommate Clint had told him to. Apparently, Steve was bad at flirting according to everyone, but that still didn’t explain how he was now waiting for Tony to get an x-ray because a customer had elbowed him in the face. It was just supposed to be a normal day, one where he took the chance to actually ask Tony out on a day.

* * *

“So, how was dinner with not Tony Stark?” Bucky asked him as they got everything ready for the opening shift.

It was eight in the morning and the only people in the store were him, Bucky and Natasha, everyone else usually arrived around noon, but the mornings were quiet enough to not have a full staff. Though they had hired more part-timers after the first few weeks, and Tony had in fact brought in a lot of business, so he was grateful for that. Natasha was sitting at one of the tables filling up the napkin holders for Bucky, and Steve knew that she was waiting for the answer to Bucky’s question. He loved his friends, but right now he wasn’t too fond of them.

“It was fine,” Steve said mainly because he didn’t want to give too much away. “I mean he actually is Tony Stark, but we went to Shake Shack and at burgers, it wasn’t anything fancy,” he wasn’t going to tell them that they had stayed out until almost three in the morning talking, while walking around Manhattan, which should honestly be a bad idea, but he hadn’t cared.

“He’s into him,” Natasha said with a smile as she finished with the napkins and moved onto the sugar. Bucky was behind the counter putting the pastries into the display, a smirk on his face. “You can tell because while he says one thing to us, he’s running commentary in his head.”

“So, does this mean that you’re dating Tony Stark?” Bucky asked and Steve knew that they were curious, but Steve wasn’t sure about the logistics of it either, because while they talked and had fun, they hadn’t kissed so it couldn’t be considered a first date.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly because what did he know.

“He’s terrible at flirting,” Bucky said as he sat down next Natasha pulling her legs on his lap. “Remember when him and Peggy were talking, it had taken her three months to figure out that he had been trying to ask her out.”

“I remember that, and afterwards she ended up telling him that she only liked him as a friend, because as it turned out, she was already into someone else,” Natasha added which made Steve hate his friends just a little more.

Steve ignored them and walked away, heading towards the registers to open them up for the day, when he saw Clint standing outside. Honestly, he couldn’t understand why the man didn’t have a job, but since Natasha was letting him in Steve knew that they were all going to gang up on him. He could hear them talking but choose to ignore them because he knew that they were going to bring the topic up over and over again until he caved and got them to help him.

It wasn’t until the talking stopped that Steve felt himself calm down, well until Clint popped up in front of him and made him drop a roll of quarters. “I don’t need advice Clint,” he said before Clint could say anything.

“Good cause I’m not here to give it, I’m actually here to ask for a favor,” Clint said smiling at Steve, which made him question helping his own friend. “I want to ask someone out on a date, but since they work on the day, I want to take them out... I need you to give them that day off.”

“And why are you asking for them?”

“Because I haven’t asked them yet, and I know you and Coulson control the schedule so can you please help me make this happen, I mean I got tickets to Wrestlemania and I know they would say yes if you let them have the night off.”

The laugh was stuck in his chest, he didn’t want to laugh, and he was trying really hard not to, but he knew of only one person who worked there that would want to go with Clint to anything wrestling. It was the same reason why he had to fix a broken shelf the other day, which was the reason why he got to talk to Tony in the first place, but he still couldn’t help the laugh that was bubbling up inside of him.

“No laughing,” Clint said but Steve couldn’t help it, because now Clint had brought it up and he was laughing in the man’s face.

“Fine,” he said once he stopped, “I’ll schedule Darcy for an opening shift and you can pick her up here.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Clint said hugging him, his friend was a fully-grown man child and they all knew it. “You’re the best,” Clint called out as he went back towards the front of the store.

“Yeah, whatever,” Steve said, he knew that Darcy would say yes, she liked Clint, she had asked him a million questions about Clint the first time the man had shown up in the store. It was weird because she was a Political Science student in the master’s program at one of the nearby schools, but she was the loudest outgoing person he knew.

His only morning part-timer showed up just before opening, which meant that Steve could fix up the shelves in peace while everyone else worked on their own things. If he ended up in the self-help section reading about flirting, well no one should really know.

The store was busy the whole day as more and more students realized that they were open, so they came for coffee and to order school books that they didn’t carry. He hadn’t seen Tony all day and Steve wondered if he had thought too much about their so-called dinner. Instead of dwelling on what could have been, he watched his staff help the customers. He also watched Clint ask Darcy out in Clint’s own special way, which was a little over the top, and involved the guy shooting Darcy with what looked like an arrow with a heart on it. The whole thing was cute and weird at the same time, but Darcy loved it so Steve was just going to let the whole thing go.

“I’m going to be in the back for a while,” Steve told Natasha as she cleaned up the children’s books that some of the kids had left scattered around.

“You’re not going to stand there and pine over whether or not Tony was going to walk through the door,” she said with a smile, but Steve could only glare at her.

“Do you see me getting on your case about whatever you and Bucky are?”

“Actually yes, because James and I have a very normal relationship, on that involves communication and actual flirting.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he said before walking away. He wasn’t going to stand there and listen to Natasha get on his case about his lack of skills when it came to dating, he had gotten by just fine in college and when he was in the army, so did they actually know.

* * *

There was a fine line between flirting and moping and Tony was on the border, mainly because he didn’t know what Steve wanted out of their date the other night. He really tried to read the other man, but even after hours of talking and walking around, the night just ended with Steve waving at him as he got into an uber. To top it all off Tony hadn’t slept much, and ended up oversleeping, so he couldn’t stop at the bookstore before his morning class for coffee. Which was just a lie, because it would have been a ploy to just see Steve and maybe try asking him on a second date. He wasn’t even sure if the guy was anywhere on any spectrum, but since they had talked about things Tony was almost certain that there was something there.

“You’re moping again,” Bruce said as he walked into their shared office, because while Tony taught in one department and Bruce in another, their departments shared a building and the offices were all on the same floor, so the two of them had volunteered to be the ones who had to share.

“I’m not, I just didn’t have my morning coffee,” or any coffee for that matter, he was tired and literally living on red bulls at the moment, so he should probably get some food at some point as well. “Are you going to see Thor today?”

“Yeah after my three o’clock class finishes, which is usually around five,” Bruce said, which would give Tony a reason to go to the store, just because Bruce would be there. “What happened?” Bruce asked which meant that Tony would have to actually address the problem at hand.

“Nothing, just that I may not have read Steve right, or maybe Steve hadn’t known my intentions, I don’t know,” why was he telling Bruce this, like he was some high school kid or something. “I have to go to S.I. but I’ll go with you to the bookstore later.”

“Don’t use me as an excuse to go,” Bruce said but Tony really wasn’t, was he, damn it.

“Sorry... what was that,” Tony said as he walked out the door. “I can’t hear you,” he really didn’t want Bruce guilt tripping him over this, it was stupid yes, and Tony did want an excuse to go to the store, but he was second guessing himself, so he was using Bruce as a lifeline so that he could go.

The rest of his day, if you could call endless meetings a day, was spent at Stark Industries, Pepper was on him for a million different R & D projects, while his father had him speaking with the board to assure them that yes he took his role in the company seriously, but he still wanted to teach and they couldn’t really stop him. It was fulfilling to him to shape young minds, plus he liked having them become interns at S.I. they had good ideas and the summer internship program was a good starting point for all of them.

“I was good today,” he told Pepper as he got his stuff to leave, “Please don’t call me tomorrow, I haven’t really slept in the last few days and it would be nice to have a day off.”

“I won’t make any promises,” she said to him giving him a knowing look.

“Please Pep, I’ll be good next week, but just this weekend let me not have anything to do,” he was begging, and if he had the strength he would be on his hands and knees, but he didn’t know if he would get off the floor again.

“Fine, but I have the right to ask you for the most expensive pair of shoes for Christmas,” she said pouting. “And a necklace for May.”

“Done, just pick out what you want, and I’ll get it for you.”

“I feel like this is half bribery half coercion,” she said to him and honestly it could have been, but this was how they worked and have worked since they were in school together.

“It’s what we do,” he said walking towards the door. “See you after my morning classes on Monday Pep.”

“Have a good weekend Mr. Stark.”

The cab ride to the bookstore had been a long one, S.I. was in Midtown, whereas the store was in Greenwich Village near his apartment. Yes, he could have lived in the tower like his parents, but honestly there was something about having his own brownstone that made life a little bit better. Plus, he reinforced the place when he brought it, so that he could play loud music in his workshop and blow things up at the same time. So far no one has really complained, but then again, they couldn’t hear him in the first place, so it was okay.

When he arrived, the store looked like it was glowing, he remembered with Mrs. Rogers had run the place, she had always made sure that the lights were on well into the night, because winter always brought some kind of magic to it. Even with everything that Steve had done to revive the place, it still felt like the home that Tony had been given when he was a kid. His little safe haven. He wondered if he would still have that if the whole thing with Steve didn’t really work out, he didn’t even want to bring it up because he feared losing this little part of his life.

The inside of the store was warm, and the first thing he did was buy a large cup of coffee, Sam their expert barista, was behind the counter. It was late so of course some of the morning people left already, which worried him even more because it meant that Steve could have left for the day. He thanked Sam and walked off towards the stacks to look for something new to read, since he had read everything that he had already brought in the last few weeks. At least his excuse to come here was making them money and giving him too much reading material at the same time.

He had gotten to the other side of the kids' section when he saw something that was not right, and apparently, he hadn’t been the only one to have seen it because there was one of Steve’s co-workers watching from the side where she was shelving books. He knew that her name was Natasha, he had come into the store enough to know the names of all of the people who worked there. Anyone would wonder why some old man was sitting in the children’s section with a magazine, yes there was a chair there, but mostly it was for the parents to wait in as the kids looked through the books.

“What the hell are you doing?” Natasha yelled at the man in the chair as he dropped a magazine on his lap, as he glared at Natasha for interrupting him.

Tony walked over so that there was someone there in case she needed a hand, because the guy was a perv if Tony had ever seen one, and he was almost certain that the man had been jerking off right there in front of a bunch of kids. Tony did the only thing he could think of, he started ushering the kids towards their parents before walking over to where Natasha stood as she tried to pull the man out of the chair.

“Do you know that you’re in public, and near kids, what did you think that you could get away with this,” she yelled at the man before grabbing to pull him off the chair, most likely to get him to the back office so that she could call the cops, but some of the parents were already dialing. If there was one thing that came to mind to Tony in the minutes after it happened it was that he shouldn’t have gotten too close, but he knew that someone needed to get between Natasha and the perv, and since none of the other employees were close enough, Tony had stepped up.

“You have no right,” the man tried to say, and of course just when he yanked his arm away from Natasha the guy’s elbow slammed right into Tony’s face, hitting him right in the nose. “What the fuck,” the guy yelled out, right as Steve’s familiar face came into view.

It was one thing to hear that there was a commotion on the floor of the store, it was another thing to come out of his office and see Natasha pulling a guy out of a chair, a guy whose pants fell to the ground the moment he was standing, just before the guy clocked Tony on the face with his elbow. He had moved faster than he could think, Thor grabbing the guy’s pants and yanking them up as the nearby parents took their kids towards the café at Sam’s persuasion, luckily, he had gotten to them before the guy’s pants had dropped with the offer of coffee for the parents and cookies for the kids.

“Thor put him in the office in the back,” Steve kneeled down next to Tony who was now bleeding heavily from his nose. “And stay with him until the cops come,” he really shouldn’t have stayed in the back for as long as he had. “Nat, Bucky’s in the back, can you get him to cover the front door for Thor, and also call an ambulance for Tony.”

“Sure,” she said before running off towards the back of the store.

Steve could only sigh as Tony mumbled something next to him, but he couldn’t hear him, and Steve was sure that his nose was broken. “Darcy,” he called out only to have Clint come to him instead.

“She’s helping with the kids,” Clint told him as he looked between Steve and Tony. “Is that Tony Stark?”

“Not now Clint,” Steve said annoyed that that was the first thing that had come out of Clint’s mouth. “Can you just get Sam to give you the first aid kit that we keep in the café.”

“Sure,” Clint answered, he looked between the two of them before walking off towards the café.

“Ish, no’ booken,” Tony said and while it was cute to hear him say it, and nice to see him there trying to help Natasha, but now Steve was just worried, and wasn’t sure if the store’s insurance would cover a customer getting injured to this point.

“It’s definitely broken, I can already tell, just stay still,” he said to Tony, and the only reason he knew it was broken was that Bucky had broken his nose testing out his arm when he had first gotten it. Tony’s nose was swelling the same way that Bucky’s had. “You shouldn’t have tried to intervene Tony.”

“He wash goin affer her,” Tony said, his speech slurred but it was nice to know that Tony would defend someone without thinking about it.

“Well now I have to take you to the hospital, so it can be our second date,” he said without thinking, because he had really thought about the other night as their first even though they hadn’t kissed. He had wanted to, but he hadn’t been sure if Tony would have wanted him too, and permission was something that Steve valued.”

“You thoogt ish was a date,” Tony said, and Steve could see the look of hope in the other man’s eyes, and he felt like kicking himself for not noticing earlier.

“It was to me, I mean, I liked how open you were when we first talked, and it doesn’t hurt that I find you attractive,” he stopped himself before moving to get up. “We can talk about this later, after we get you all fixed.”

“Um pessing charges,” Tony said, and Steve knew that it was more against the pervert that had been in the store and not Steve, but it still scared him a little to hear that.

Clint showed up a few minutes later, popping open the ice bag and shaking it before handing it to Tony, “Clint can you wait here with him so I can check in with Thor,” Steve said even though he didn’t want to leave Tony’s side.

“Yeah sure man,” Clint said, Darcy not far behind him with a bag of ice from the café.

Steve went to the back only to find Natasha yelling at the guy a stapler in her hand, yelling about stapling the guy’s balls to his ass, “You shouldn’t do that around kids, what the fuck is wrong with you,” she was yelling.

He knew that she was fiercely protective, she had chosen the children’s books because she liked kids, but this was another side of her that no one really got to see. You see the one thing that most people didn’t know about Natasha was that she was a real momma bear when it came to protecting children. The reason stemmed from how she had grown up, she had always told him that no kid should have to live like she had.

“Natasha,” Steve called out as he walked in. “Don’t threaten the man, trust me I’m sure that Tony’s lawyers would be enough to keep him out of here and anywhere else for a very long time.”

“You mean that guy I hit, he was just in the way, she had no right,” the guy yelled out, but Steve was already on her other side, trying to stop her from doing anything else. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Yeah except you were caught with your pants down,” Thor said keeping the guy in the chair while Steve blocked Natasha.

“Also, you elbowed Tony Stark in the face,” Natasha added, and it was only then that the guy blanched. “Yeah next time you put up a fight make sure you know who you’re hitting.”

Without another word she walked out of the office, and all Steve could think about was just how tired he was. He needed to take a day off, because the last week has been a rollercoaster ride, hell the last month alone, but he would just take a few hours alone.

“Steve, the ambulance is here,” Darcy said from the other side of the door, which meant that the cops were also there.

“Let me go deal with all of this, and then I’m taking Mr. Stark to the hospital,” he said to Thor, not wanting to let the customer know about his relationship with Tony.

As he was leaving the room, he could hear the guy yelling out, he knew he was in trouble and it wasn’t just because of Tony he had been caught with his hands down his pants by Natasha of all people. The guy was lucky that she hadn’t outright killed him right then and there, but that was only because Steve had stopped her, and he really didn’t want to be the one that had to deal with the cops because she had murdered someone.

When he made it to the front, a small crowd had gathered, because of course Tony is one of the most well know people in the city, but then he heard some of them call him Professor and Steve wasn’t sure what that was about. Yes, they had talked during dinner and in the hours afterwards, but it had been mostly about what they both liked and Tony was a wealth of information, even really random pop culture references. He quickly directed the police to the back, sending Natasha with them before turning his attention towards Sam, who had called Bucky over from the door. Clint was standing guard, which was strange, but maybe he could ask Thor for a job.

“Buck, can you keep an eye on the store, call in Phil if you have to, I know it’s his day off, but he can help you guys close the store at the end of the night,” Steve said as Bucky nodded, “Sam you know how to close the café right?”

“Yeah, I do it three nights a week,” Sam answered, and Steve realized that he hadn’t known that.

“Okay, can you do that tonight if Bucky can’t get a hold of Phil?”

“Sure man,” Sam said just as Natasha walked over to him, Steve guessed that the police already knew her side of the story and were in the back with Thor.

“Nat,” he called out to her as she reached him. “I’m going to go with Mr. Stark to the hospital now, you and Bucky are in charge until I get back.”

“It’s okay Steve, just go take care of him,” she said with a soft smile on her face, she knew that he was worried, not just about the store but about Tony. It was nice to work with friends who knew a person so well that they didn’t have to say much, all they had to do was give you a look and some words of encouragement and that was all.

By the time Tony was on the ambulance he was ready to freak out, he wasn’t too overly fond of hospitals, having spent most of his childhood trying to fix a heart problem that had developed from being born premature. This was something that had continued well into his teenage years and had only been solved by his need to make everything better and more efficient. Hence the fact that he was allowed a limited amount of work at S.I. and not the full workload that he should have had. His mother worried, his father worked, and Tony just created things to help the company overall. The advanced pacemaker in his chest had saved him, the doctors had repaired most of the problems with his heart over the years. He hadn’t had to stay overnight in a hospital since before he went to M.I.T., but now the prospect of going to the ER was enough to send his brain into a panic.

That was until Steve climbed into the back of the ambulance and sat next to him, saying “Hi,” with a smile that could melt the freaking artic.

“I want to come with you,” Steve said before taking Tony’s hand, no doubt taking not of how it was shaking, because Tony didn’t do anything in halves, he was well on his way to having a panic attack and he knew it.

“Tbanks,” he said knowing that his words were still a little off from the broken nose and his head was a little woozy from the blood loss, but with Steve there he knew that everything would be alright.

“Tired?” Steve asked him and all Tony could do was nod, honestly, he was too tired to deal with anything, but he also knew that he had to get a hold of Pepper, and his mother, and probably Rhodey if he had the strength. “You need me to call anyone?”

“Yesh,” he said before pulling out his phone, he remembered the night before how Steve had looked at the thing in awe, mainly because it was the only one of its kind, Tony had made it for himself alone because he hated the way most smartphones looked. Tony pressed a couple of buttons before the screen lit up with the call and handed it over to Steve, who was even more surprised when Pepper’s face popped up.

“Yes, Tony,” she hadn’t been looking at the screen to see what was happening which meant that she had answered from her desk at S.I., and she was in the middle of work, when she should have left for the day.

“Hello, Ms... umm,” Steve started but he didn’t know who Pepper was and Tony hadn’t given him her name.

“Potts,” he said hoping the word came out clearly enough and not too slurred.

Pepper had finally looked up to see that she had been facing Steve and not Tony, “Who are you,” she said before he pulled Steve’s hand towards him, “Oh my god Tony what happened, are you in an ambulance? are you alright? Should I call your mother?”

Tony sent her a thumbs up on the last one, ignoring the rest, god he was so tired, but he pointed at Steve so that the blonde could talk about what had happened. Steve took his hand in his and held the phone in the other while looking at Pepper.

“He was at my store today and was in an accident, we’re headed to the hospital now, but I wanted to make sure that someone was called about what had happened,” Steve said to her but all Tony could think about was the warmth of his hand, they were a little rough, but that’s because Mrs. Rogers had told him that Steve had gone to the army.

Tony was distracted the rest of the way to the hospital, all the while Steve was on the phone talking with Pepper. All he could think about was how nice Steve was, and what was he doing with him, he wasn’t good at relationships, he usually failed at them, but it was nice to actually have Steve there. He could just equate it to the fact that he was half out of it, because he really wanted to try with Steve, but at the same time he was in so much pain. Any adrenaline that had earlier had all but left him, and the pain was starting to set in and he hated it more than anything, but he had Steve’s hand in his so he would just bare it for now.

When they had reached the hospital, all it took was the jolt from the gurney being pulled out to bring that pain into his head full force, he groaned turning over trying to make sure that Steve didn’t see him. He didn’t know why it mattered, but all of a sudden, he was feeling self-conscience about the whole thing. They had put him in a room as soon as he was wheeled in, and he knew that someone had called in advanced, most likely his mother, she was fiercely protective of him. Steve hadn’t left his side at all since they got on the ambulance, and Tony was still reeling over the fact that Steve had considered their dinner the other night as a date. He could kick himself for not kissing him, but that would stupid since he was already in the hospital for something completely different.

He hadn’t noticed that he had fallen asleep until he had woken up in a completely different room, and he wasn’t in his regular clothes. Man, he really hated hospital gowns, they were so revealing and scratchy and stupid, and they probably had him on something strong because his head felt light, and he could swear that Steve was glowing.

“You’re pretty,” he said and he knew at that moment that he was doomed but it felt nice just to say that to Steve so it didn’t really matter. “I liked you ever since I was twelve... did you know that you’re two years older than I am... everyone is older than me.”

“I don’t think that’s true Tony,” Steve said and the smile on his face made him glow even more.

“I wanted to kiss you the other night, I bet your lips are soft... so soft... I wonder what you would look like with a beard?” There was amusement in Steve’s eyes, but he couldn’t stop himself, “Maybe some hot lumberjack, do you own flannel shirts, I bet you do, it would look really good on you... maybe some blue checkered shirt.”

Honestly Steve didn’t know what to think, the swelling on Tony’s nose had gone down after they had fixed him up and give him some medication, he wasn’t stuffed up anymore either, but what they had given him had been very strong if the other man was talking like this. Just hearing that Tony had liked him when he had been twelve, which would have made Steve fourteen was something else. He had been a scrawny kid, his asthma had kept him from doing a lot, but at sixteen he had grown out of it and hit a growth spurt at the same time.

“I wanted to climb you like a tree at dinner,” Tony said and Steve really wanted to laugh, it was sweet to hear all of this, but he wasn’t sure just how much Tony was going to remember.

When Tony’s eyes became droopy, and he had fallen asleep, Steve breathed a little easier, it was hard to function when the person you liked was talking like that. After the conversation with Ms. Potts, Steve had kept an eye on Tony, she had said that they were going to need to keep this out of the press until the official story was out. Steve still worried, not only about Tony, but also about the store, especially since he had left so quickly and now with everything that was happening.

“Don’t worry too much,” Ms. Potts voice came in from behind him walking in with two cups of coffee, “He’s had worse.”

“I wasn’t worried too much about him, he was talking a minute ago,” he said but he didn’t want to say what it was about.

“Tony has these moments, where the press wants to get at him,” she said her eyes had this fondness to it, which meant that she had some stories. “But I think you’ll be fine as well as your store, so you don’t really have to stay.”

Yes, Steve didn’t want the store to have any bad publicity, but she had assured him that they weren’t especially since everyone knew that it was one of Tony’s favorite places. For Steve though, it wasn’t so much as the press finding out, but the fact that Tony had gotten hurt, he was afraid that they would turn it around and blame it on Steve instead of the guy responsible, all the while Steve was worried about Tony being hurt.

“I want to stay,” he said looking over at Tony, still a little worried about his nose. “I don’t know if he’s told you.”

“About the great Steve Rogers,” she said with a smile on her face as she took a sip of her coffee. “Trust me, Rhodey and I have heard about you for years, though there was that brief period where he didn’t say anything about you, but that’s because I think you were dating someone and Tony hadn’t thought that it was his place to get between that, but you’ve been his crush for a very long time.”

“So, you know about me, Ms. Potts,” he said feeling shy all of a sudden.

“Call me Pepper, and yes I do, I wouldn’t be one of his closest friends if I didn’t,” she said to him and he nodded, there was so much of his past that was intertwined with Tony’s and he hadn’t even known that much. “Just so you know, he’s a good guy, his parents wanted him to take over the company, and they’ve been grooming him towards it, but he fought them tooth and nail just so that he could teach part-time, he loves teaching and his students are always interning at Stark Industries because of it too. They’re all very bright, but there had always been one place where he had never stepped back from, and his mother knows this because he once told her, when he had been twelve, that he was going to end up with you.”

At those words Steve could feel the heat rushing to his face, this was something that he should have probably not known about. “How do you know about this?” he asked curious as to why she knew.

“He told me once,” she said to him, her eyes never leaving him. “When he was too tired from school work, and too drunk to function. He probably wouldn’t tell you otherwise, but I thought that you might want to know.”

“Thanks,” he said not sure if his face was a completely different color, but it was sweet to hear.

“If you hurt him though, I know where to hid a body, and no one will ever find you,” she said before getting up and walking out of the room, leaving him dumbstruck right where he sat.

* * *

The hospital had kept him overnight, although he didn’t really remember much about it, he could have sworn that he had had a dream about telling Steve that he could be a hot lumberjack, but that couldn’t have been real... right. His mother had been the one to pick him up from the hospital and get him home, Jarvis driving the car shooting Tony worried looks. It’s what happened when you’ve been looked after by the same people your whole life.

Once he was settled in his bed, his face sore and a dull ache slowly pounding its way up to his brain, his mother smiled at him.

“My poor baby boy,” she said kissing him on his head like she had when he had been a little kid and had been under an engine that he had been rebuilding with his father and the thing had fallen a few inches right onto his head. His father had freaked out, mainly because Tony had bled a lot, but since head wounds tend to bleed like crazy, they had realized it hadn’t been too bad of an injury, but they hadn’t wanted to test the waters especially with Tony’s medical history.

“I’m not a baby anymore,” he grumbled, his head was killing him, and he was glad that his students had a long weekend, because he wasn’t ready to deal with them just yet.

“You’ll always be my bambino, no matter how old you get,” she smiled before getting up. “It was nice to finally meet that Rogers boy, especially after all of the stories you told me when you were younger.”

“Oh god that was real,” he said as the memory of Steve staying with him came back. All of the things he had said, he really should have had a muzzle on his face.

“Yes, it was, but he took it in stride, and I’m sure on your next date it’ll all be alright.”

That’s if they had a second date and Tony didn’t die of embarrassment from telling the guy that he had wanted to climb him like a freaking tree. Maybe he could finally invent time travel and go back and stop himself from doing anything so embarrassing ever again. He wondered if it was too late to become a monk somewhere in Asia and disappear for the rest of his life.

“You worry too much Anthony, he’s not going to runaway just because you said something, if I didn’t run from your father what makes you think that your Steve won’t run from you... I swear you Stark men are too over dramatic for your own good.”

“Let me hear you tell dad that,” he said smiling.

“Just take it easy, and when he comes over, be nice to him,” she said before getting up. “Jarvis is going to stay with you for a little while, I have a meeting with the new batch of students you’ve hired for the S.I. interns, since you’re not going to make it to that now that you’re injured.”

“Damn it,” he said, knowing just how many of his former students were going to intern for the rest of the semester.

“No, and don’t even think about going anyway, you’re under orders to stay in bed for the next few days. So, if I see you step into that building, I’m going to have someone tie you to the bed,” she said before giving him a stern look and walking towards the door. “I’ll call to check on you later.”

Just as she was leaving, he heard her stop to talk to someone, Tony brushed it off thinking that it was just Jarvis and decided to at least try and get comfortable enough to rest. He knew the power of his own mother and he wasn’t going to go against her, he had tried once, and it cost him dearly because the woman locked him out of his workshop when he had been ten and told him that if he was going to win a science fair he would have to do it with the things already in the house. It had taken him more that a month to create something that would had normally taken him two days, but he had won the damn prize anyway.

His eyes were closed when he walked into Tony’s room, but he figured that he could just sit there with him for a little while. Steve had brought some cookies that he had made as well as some books that he had his grandmother recommend, though why Tony Stark would read romance novels was beyond him, but his grandmother had insisted that it’s what they normally read. He put the books on the bedside table along with the cookies, they were shortbread and a little more on the sweeter side because he usually drank it with his grandmother’s tea, and he thought that Tony would appreciate it.

“I brought some tea as you suggested Mr. Rogers,” Jarvis the butler said, walking in with the tray in his hand. Steve automatically stood up to help the older man, he looked like he was his grandmother’s age, he wondered why the man was still working.

“Steve,” Tony called out from the bed his eyes wide open staring at him. “How… why are you here?”

“Well I live down the block, but you already knew that,” Steve couldn’t help but smile, it had been Pepper who had told him that Tony lived near him, which then gave him the idea to come over. “And since you’re on bedrest for the rest of the weekend, I thought I’d come over and hang out with you for a little while. We can watch a movie and eat these cookies I made.”

“You made me cookies,” Tony said looking at him with stars in his eyes. Steve nodded towards the plate next to his bed and when Tony turned to see the plate he smiled. “We can even give Mr. Jarvis the rest of the night off.”

“Okay,” Tony said with a smile on his face. “But you have to sit on the bed.”

“Tony,” he tried to say no but the pouty face Tony was sending him was enough to admit defeat. “Fine, but don’t overdo it, I already know you’re not the type to stay put.”

“Who blabbed?”

“Pepper did,” Steve answered with a smile.

Jarvis had gone home after that, why would he stay to watch him and Tony, and secretly Steve was glad that they were alone, especially when Tony fell asleep halfway through the first movie, his head on Steve’s chest. It felt warm, and it had made him happy, even to the point that he had fallen asleep soon after. If this was what his life would be like with Tony around, he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yes part of this actually happened while I worked at Borders, but we weren't allowed to do anything, security was responsible for dealing with it. The amount of perverts that came into my store was astonishing and really scary.
> 
> What else would you like to see?


	3. There’s something weird about this place (or how Grandma Rogers forgot to tell Steve that the store maybe haunted)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's something weird happening at the store

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for @ Myrime because I told her about how my store used to haunted 
> 
> Introducing Wanda into the story, plus her and Sam being into the ghost hunting shows was something that I made up in my head, but would also be stupidly funny to think about.
> 
> Backstory, if you're curious, I used to work at a store that had a skylight that went from the first floor (fiction section) all the way to the basement (the part where the children's section was). So, there had always been these weird things happening in the fiction section, books would fall out of the shelves, random stains would appear, things like that. The part that had gone into the basement had been sealed off after someone fallen through the skylight and landed in the basement, and we often wondered if that person haunted the store.

If there was one thing that he had wanted to do, well it was to stay close to Tony, but he still had a store to run and Tony was feeling better, even though his face was still black and blue. Though the warmth of the smaller man was something that had stayed with Steve as he made his way back home to get ready to open the store. He was lucky that he kept his uniform in his office, as well as spares in case of accidents. Though he allowed everyone to wear what they wanted to wear, he still wanted to be professional no matter what. He was the store manager and the owner, he needed everyone to see him like that. 

Alone in the back office, as he changed into his clothes, he couldn’t help but think about taking Tony on another date, probably once the man’s nose was healed because he didn’t want Tony to get hurt again. Especially not after watching the man cry because his coffee was too hot and actually hurt to drink. 

“Tony it’s too hot to drink right now anyway,” he had said that morning, but Tony’s pouting was adorable to him.

“It’s how I normally drink it,” Tony told him, as he gave Steve those puppy dog eyes. “I like hot coffee, I like all coffee, but that’s beside the point right now, I really need my  caffeine Steve.”

“Just let it cool down,” Steve said as he made them breakfast so that Tony could take his pill.

Thinking back on that now, he didn’t know how he had gotten so lucky just to have Tony in his life. Their first meeting had been a random mess, first with Tony just babbling about how he knew Steve’s grandmother, though after hearing from Tony about it made Steve smile because there’s an image in his head of a short nerdy Tony with his glasses on talking to Steve’s grandmother. He could never get over how lively his grandmother was, she talked about things that happened so long ago, and how she had once loved a girl before meeting Steve’s grandfather. There was a reason why her store had been in the Village instead of the Brooklyn neighborhood she had grown up in. Though some of these things she never really talked about when his grandfather had been alive, but he was sure that his Pops would have been fine with, mainly because anything she had said made the old man gush. 

“Listen here Stevie,” she would say with a smile when he was a kid. “Your grandfather is my soulmate and the love of my life, but he also points out the cooler Aunties in the neighborhood and says to me, that they have nothing on his girl, and he only did it because he could catch me looking.”

Little Grandma Rogers the lively bi-sexual grandmother, who loved her husband until he had sadly passed when Steve had been in middle school, when she had found out that he was bi-sexual she had constantly tried to point out guys and girls who she would think that he was interested in. Which led to him dating Peggy Carter in high school, and some random guy named Logan in the army. He wondered what she would think if she heard about him and Tony getting together. He’d have to call her later just to find out, she’d probably be happy for him but honestly, he would love to hear it from her.

“Hey Steve,” Natasha said as she walked into the office on her way to where the lockers were, “How’s Tony?”

“He’s good, recovering from,” he said while pointing at his nose, “He’ll be fine in a few days.”

“Okay,” she said looking around the room except to where he was standing because he knew that she felt guilty about the whole thing. “I shouldn’t have freaked out like that the other day, but he was near a bunch of kids and I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Natasha you’re fine, honestly it’s better that you were the one there and not me because I would have punched him and where wouldn't have been able pull back and  well, I was in the army so that would have been a disaster.”

“Yes, it would have you punk,” Bucky’s voice came in from behind him. He watched as his best friend walked over to where Natasha was standing and kissed her. “But I’m glad that was handled, but I do feel bad for Stark.”

“Steve says he’s fine, and considering the fact that he’s wearing the same thing from yesterday, I’m guessing he went over there and took care of him too,” Natasha smiled at him as she said which only made him blush. 

“Oh, well this is news to me, last time I saw him was when he was walking out of his apartment like a bat out of hell, but I guess if he was at Stark’s place, then there’s a reason for the mess he left in the kitchen.”

“I was going to clean it Buck, I just didn’t get back, plus why were you in my apartment,” Steve said looking between the two of them. “Last time I found you both there you had eaten all of my food.”

“We just wanted some sugar,” Natasha said to him a smile on her face that told him that he really shouldn’t ask questions. “We were making some caramel and we ran low.”

“Well that’s enough information for me,” Steve said buttoning up his shirt and throwing on his vest before walking out of the room. He’s heard enough about Bucky and Nat’s sex life to scar him for life, some of it had been through random accidents but he knew better than to listen to them any longer than he should.

Walking through the store was an easy task, it was one of the few things he did before starting on the cash counts for the two registers they had. It was also a way for him to acquaint himself with his surroundings and get ready for the day ahead. After the incident with the customer in the children’s section he wanted to make sure that nothing like that happened again.

The moment he tripped over a pile of books, that he was sure shouldn’t have been on the floor in the first place, he knew that this day was going to be a weird one. Why there were books on the floor in the first place was a mystery to him. He couldn’t help but stare at them for a moment, they weren’t placed there, some of them were on the floor open as if they had fallen off of the shelf at some point, or as if someone had knocked them down.

“What are you looking at,” Natasha said as she walked up to him, before looking down at the floor. “Why are there books on the floor?”

“I was going to ask the same question, were they here yesterday?” he asked as he bent down to pick them up off the floor. 

“No, we cleaned everything up before closing yesterday, but maybe they fell off afterwards, I mean it’s a display they could have just tipped over at any point.”

He couldn’t help but look at the books, the way they were far enough away from the edge that if one fell it would still be on the shelf, but it hadn’t been just one copy, but all of the copies of the book that had fallen on the ground. 

“I would expect one to fall, but not all of them,” he said to her trying to find a way for it to have happened, except when the books were properly  lined, they stood without problem. 

“Who knows, maybe we have a ghost,” she said with a smile on her face as she walked away towards the  kids' section. “Don’t think too much about it, it could have just happened when I walked in.”

Honestly, he didn’t want to think about it, and Natasha was right it could have recently happened, but it still bothered him for some reason. Pushing it out of his mind, he worked on getting the store ready to open for the day. He was just over reacting over nothing, so it shouldn’t really matter otherwise,

* * *

There were two kinds of pains in the world, the ones you caused yourself and the ones that were caused by others. This was the second kind, and he hated it, his face hurt like hell, he wasn’t allowed to go to class, because college students had the tendency of doing things out in the open and a flying football to his face would just make it worse, though the painkillers were actually the reason. There was also the fact that Pepper had taken his impromptu day off to drop a massive amount of paperwork on his kitchen table. He wished that he could have convinced Steve to stay instead of having to deal with this.

“I thought I was on bed rest,” he said to the red head in front of him who looked like a cross between his secretary and a hot librarian. “You should see May when you’re dressed like that,” he added, pointing out the outfit.

“I do, constantly,” Pepper answered her face flushing a little as she said it.

“There’s a story there isn’t there,” he said smiling only to wince because even smiling caused him pain. “Tell me the story and I’ll sign everything within the hour.”

The fact that Pepper hadn’t thrown the stack at him was telling, mainly because it was a thing that they did, but  also, he was sure that she didn’t want to injure him further and risk the wrath of momma Stark. His mother was scary when he was injured, she had called him four times since she had left him with Steve.

“Honestly, I could use some advice, but I’m afraid that you’re just going to do that thing where you tell me something just to get rid of me so that you could go to your dungeon in the basement and hide for three days.”

“I’m locked out,” he said knowing that if he went Jarvis, both in person and in A.I. form, would just tell his mother and while he was an adult man, he was still scared of the woman. “So, I can give you all of the advice I have without having to run from you.”

Pepper smiled at him, “I know you’re hating this,” she said as she sat back in her chair and looked at him. 

“Yeah well there’s only so much I can do,” he shrugged and signed another document, he had read them all, of course he did, he had all the time in the world at the moment. “So, what do you the great Pepper Potts need advice with, because if I remember, the last time I tried to give you any kind of advice you threatened me with your shoe.”

“Ha ha, very funny, but there’s a difference between advice and telling me to show up at home in a transparent raincoat and nothing else.”

If there was a moment when Tony knew that he loved Pepper it was when she had let him live after that, they had been friends for a long time, but that day, he had been a little drunk and really horny and possibly drugged with some version of Spanish Fly, and he had been just sixteen. Of course, he was horny, but that was beside the point, she knew him better than anyone and she had told him later that she knew someone had put something in his drink, and that’s why they had gone home early from the party. That night he had ended up in the hospital, because you really shouldn’t drug people, and he had gotten a raging boner that refused to go down. In the bed next to him had been May, who had appendicitis at the time, but it was the night that Pepper had met her girlfriend. 

The advice she had asked for that night was about asking someone out, and how to be sexy for that person. Luckily, she never listened to Tony, but because he had been drugged, she had gotten that date anyway. As it turned out May had a thing for feisty redheads who looked like hot librarians. Though that raincoat thing had come in handy not long afterwards and Pepper had thanked him for giving her the raincoat, he had a designer one that he never wore so why shouldn’t Pepper have a little fun.

“So, what kind of advice do you need?” he asked curious about where this was going. “I’m good for almost anything, except sex, because I like my balls where they are.”

“Good, because this has nothing to do with sex, but it still has to do with May,” she said to him, he was curious, mainly because they’ve been together for eternity, “So, you know how May’s nephew lives with her now, he’s a teenager.”

“Why haven’t I met him?  Hell, why is this the first time I’m hearing about this? Where has this kid been when I went to your place?”

“She had him in a private school, so he lived there for most of the year, but he graduated last year and started at one of the local schools even though he’s smart, but he’s a good kid and refuses to but any kind of burden on his aunt, he even has a part-time job.”

“Wow, you’ve been keeping secrets from me, I’m hurt Pepper,” he acted as if his heart was wounded, but he had been busy the last few years, his parents weren’t getting any younger and eventually he would have to take over the company and give up teaching.

“It wasn’t a secret, I have brought it up with you, but you have selective memory when you’re busy, and you’ve were busy that year now that I think about it, it was the year your dad had that heart attack.”

“Yeah, it was the year I couldn’t teach and had gone away on business almost every week because everyone had been scared that my dad was going to die, but the bastard is still kicking because I made that pacemaker.”

“Don’t call him that, your mother would wash your mouth out if she heard you,” she said looking around as if his mother would actually pop out of nowhere and skin him alive. “Anyway, May and I were thinking that we should probably move out of Queens, and closer to Peter’s school.”

Something in his head clicked the moment that she had said his name, “Wait, Peter Parker?”

“Yeah, do you know him?”

“Yeah, he’s in my class, hell I got him into the internship program but he said he wanted to wait until grad school to do it, he’s a really smart kid, I didn’t know he was a teenager.”

“He’s like you were when we were all in college, well minus being a complete ass,” she said and he just stuck his tongue out at her. “Anyway, do you know where we could find a place? You’re good with real estate for some reason.”

Of course, he was good with real estate, he had brought the entire two blocks around the bookstore when Mrs. Rogers had told him that she had been struggling to pay her bills.  Rhodey had a house nearby for him and Carol, whenever they decided to stop being in the air force, and had held onto one for Pepper if she had wanted it. 

“I am good, but only if you answer one question for me.”

“Sure, what do you want to know, well within reason,” she said giving him that look she always got whenever she knew that he would say or do something stupid.

“Why haven’t you asked May to marry you?” he was really curious, hell he would pay for their wedding if he could. “You’ve been together for what, ten years now?”

“I was going to ask her when I found a place big enough for all of us to share, Peter is always inventing things, and I want him to have somewhere to go, like a basement. Plus, I’m looking for a ring, so don’t go and ruin my moment Anthony Stark, or I’ll castrate you.”

“Good,” he said before getting up and going to his office. The key to the house was in a box he had gotten for the day he would give it to Pepper and May, it was going to be a wedding present, but neither had ever proposed so it had sat in the drawer the whole time.

“Why did you walk away,” Pepper said walking into the room, he knew that she was looking at all of the papers and books all over the place, he had been in the middle of grading papers when she had shown up with stuff for him to sign. 

“To get this,” he said showing her the little box, a red and gold ribbon on top. “It’s for you, as a wedding gift, though I got it for you a while ago, but since you and May are apparently cowards  it just sat there waiting.”

“Please tell me that’s not a ring, because I would kill you.”

“It’s kind of a ring,” he said smiling at her before placing the box in her hand. “Open it.”

She looked at him before pulling the ribbon, “Why is there a key in here?”

“Well, there’s a house on this block,” he said with a smile. “It’s near  Rhodey and Carol’s, because I liked that we were all friends for years and I got all of this money.”

Pepper had tears in her eyes, “That’s a lie,” she said smiling at him. “You told me once, you probably don’t remember because were really drunk, but you told me that you wanted all of our kids to grow up together.”

He did remember, he had been drunk and he had been sad because he hadn’t been dating anyone, all the while everyone he knew was falling in  love, he had been melancholy about the whole thing. He remembered seeing  Rhodey playing with one of his nieces, thinking about how it would be cool if all of their kids grew up to be best friends. It was one of the few times he had thought about having a family, his mother wanted grandbabies he knew this, but for some reason he didn’t know if it were possible for him to have kids at all when all of his relationships had ended in disaster.

“Well maybe it could happen,” he said thinking of Steve being there with  him, he didn’t know why he thought of Steve at that moment, but once it was  there, he knew he wanted it.

* * *

By the end of the night Steve was ready to push himself off on the short step outside of the store and see if he ended up dying there. For some reason things kept falling out of random places throughout the day, one time something had actually hit him on his head. He had brushed it off like it was nothing, Natasha had told him that he was delusional about the whole thing, Bucky laughed at him, and Sam the traitor had given him a book on ghosts. 

“Sam, I know you love watching those ghost hunting shows, but this is going a bit too far,” he said walking towards the back as Sam started making weird hand gestures at him, he didn’t want to be near anyone at the moment because he knew that they were just making fun of him.

“Ghost are real Steve and you know it,” Sam said following him to the back. “They have to be, how would you explain the unexplainable, like that time I saw my dead grandmother before a mission, and she told me to take an extra harness for my gear.”

“You’re messing with  me, right? This is a joke,” he said to Sam who just shrugged at him and smiled.

“You never know man, things always happen for a reason,” Sam said before walking away from him.

The last people he had expected to come up to him with anything dealing with ghost was one of their regulars, a local grad student named Wanda. Steve knew Wanda from his childhood in Brooklyn, where she moved with her twin brother Pietro, their father Erik had taken them in after their mother and step-father had died in Europe. Wanda had been seven at the time, Steve had been twelve, but he remembered helping the twins get acclimated to living in the states.

“I sometimes think that my mother follows me always, I used to see her as a child, but that faded over time,” Wanda said walking up to him while he pulled out a cart full of new books.

“Wanda, that was just you wishing for your mother,” He told her, honestly he wasn’t sure what to believe anymore, “There’s no such things as ghost. It’s your subconscious telling you that you needed to have her with you.”

“Says the nonbeliever,” she said to him sticking out her tongue like they were little kids again. “Maybe the ghost is angry,” she added while looking around the room. “You should ask your grandmother about it.”

“I’m not going to call my grandmother just to ask her if there’s a ghost haunting the store, it’s ridiculous,” and he was almost certain that she would think that he was crazy, and that’s not something that he wanted to deal with at the moment.

“Just do it,” she said before walking off. 

There was something about being told, by several people, that there was a ghost in the store, he wondered what Tony would say about it, but since Tony was currently on meds and in pain, so Steve wasn’t sure if he would be up for this kind of talk. Instead, after shelving the books, he went to hide in his office in the back, because he didn’t want to deal with the craziness that came with being out there and getting hit with a book. 

His phone was ringing when he walked into the room, “Winghead Books,” he answered, because he had to be professional even though he thought everyone was going crazy around him.

“Well hello there Steve,” Tony’s voice came over the  receiver , and he couldn’t be any happier about hearing it. “You know, I wish that you could have stayed longer this morning, because the moment you left Pepper came over and slammed a pile of papers on my dining room table and forced me to sign them.”

When Steve had met Pepper Potts during the incident, he hadn’t known that she was dating Peter’s aunt. All he knew was that she worked with Tony, or for Tony, it wasn’t until they talked afterwards, when he had baked a mountain of cookies for Tony and he hadn’t been sure if Tony was allergic to anything, that he had found out about the connection with Peter.

“Not my fault if you let her into your place,” Steve said, happy for a distraction that wasn’t ghost related. “How’s your face?”

“Well the swelling went down, and there isn’t as much bruising as I would have imagined, but they’ve banned me from working with any kind of machinery so I’ve been stuck signing paperwork and grading papers.”

“Pepper told me that you taught, but I don’t know exactly what it is you teach,” he said because he wanted to know more about Tony.

“She’s giving away all of my secrets, I won’t have any at the rate this is going,” Tony yelled out, which meant that he wasn’t really alone. He heard someone’s muffled voice before Tony spoke up again, “Pepper I have secrets.”

“Yes, you do,” she added Steve could hear the sarcasm in her voice which made Steve laugh.

“Now Steve’s laughing at me, I’m going to get nowhere with this relationship, absolutely nowhere,” Tony said with a sigh, and it had made Steve feel a lot better just hearing his voice.

“If you’re good I’ll bring over some food and we could watch another movie tonight,” Steve said thinking about how nice it had felt to have spent time with Tony the night before, it was something he would like a repeat of after the weird day he’s had.

“Are they picking on you over there? You sound a little weird,” Tony asked him and Steve knew that he wouldn’t get the chance at hiding this, at least not from Tony.

“Yeah, they are, but not for the fact that I came to work in the same clothes I had on the day before, it’s actually something weird and stupid.”

“I like weird, plus I need a distraction before she throws another stack of papers at me, my hand is cramping.” 

He couldn’t help but laugh at that, it was sweet and honestly Steve needed a distraction as well, “The whole day, things have been falling off the shelves,” Steve said sighing to himself. “Everyone keeps saying that there’s a ghost here.”

“Really again,” Tony said and for a moment Steve thought that Tony was talking to someone else. “Your grandmother used to tell me about that, but I was away at school whenever it happened so I was almost always certain that it was a joke she was playing on me.”

“She told you about it,” damn it he really was going to have to call his grandmother, “Was it always random books falling?”

“Usually something sweet, I think she knew who the ghost was but.... I don’t know, it’s just not logical for something like that to happen.”

“Yeah, two people told me to call my grandmother about it, I guess I’m going to have to call her now,” he said wishing that this wasn’t his life, because in all honesty he just wanted to run his store with no problems, and in less than a week he had two different ones, though the ghost if they were real, wasn’t really disturbing anyone, just dropping books and merchandise off the shelves.

“Well I never argued with her about it, but hey it shouldn’t be that bad, it could be a thing for the store, something to bring people in.”

“Leave it to you to make this a selling point,” though Steve knew that it was something to think about, he did have a business to run. “I guess I’ll call Nana,” he finally said and Tony just sighed.

“Pepper is giving me this look, like I will die if I don’t get back to work,” Tony said and that’s when Steve knew that his little reprieve was over. “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay, I’ll get back to work then,” he said smiling to himself, “Don’t stress her out,” he added before he hung up.

He sat there in the office contemplating his choices, because he was tired and there was a ghost apparently who wanted to make his life a living hell at the moment. Picking up the phone he dialed his grandmother’s number, he knew her even if she was busy doing  something, she would answer the phone.

The phone rang twice before she answered, “Steve, did you miss me already?”

“Hi Nana, I always miss you, I’m pretty sure the store misses you,” he said to the phone. “Nana you’re on speaker, so don’t say anything too weird okay,” he quickly added knowing that at any moment someone could just walk into the office and hear the whole conversation.

“What could I say that’s weird,” she said and he knew that she was smirking from the other side, the woman had all kinds of stories about him, most of which would embarrass the hell out of him.

“So, here’s the thing,” Steve started wishing that this wasn’t his life at the moment. “A couple of books and well other stuff has been falling off of the shelf today and we were wondering if there’s a ghost haunting the store.” Steve couldn’t help but slam his head against the table, as he uttered the words.

“Oh, so he didn’t leave did he, that old coot,” his grandmother said forcing Steve to lift his head.

“Who is he?”

“Well, there was this boy I knew growing up, he went to war at the same time as your grandfather had, anyway, he fancied me, but I didn’t like him the way that he liked me, so on the anniversary of the day he shipped out, things in the store would usually fall off the shelves.”

“When’s the anniversary Nana?” Steve asked knowing that if Sam or Wanda were there with him, they would tell him the whole I knew I was right spiel and he didn’t want to deal with it.

“Well I guess it’s today, but I didn’t think that he would have stayed there, not with me gone,” she said and Steve literally just wanted to walk out and call Sam or Wanda and let them just have the conversation, and possibly start their own YouTube careers as Ghost Hunters at the same time. Honestly Steve was ready to just leave the store and go to Tony’s house where it was safe.

“Well Nana, that’s enough unsolved mystery for me,” he sighed running his hand down his face. “I’ll call you later, and we can talk about how you’re doing.” 

“Wait, Stevie,” she called out to him before he could hang up the phone, “I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

“Sure Nana, what do you need?”

“Well, there’s this nice boy I knew when I was living up there, and I just want you to get a message to him,” she said and Steve automatically knew she was talking about Tony.

“Is that all you want, I mean if you’re trying to pull something else you might as well tell me, especially if what you want is to just have me meet him,” he said to her, she had always tried to get him to meet someone, a nice girl she knew or a boy she thought he would get along with.

“You know me so well,” she said to him. “I think you’d like him Stevie, I swear he’s perfect for you.”

“Well I’ll tell Tony that when I see him later,” he smiled to himself. Honestly Tony would probably like hearing that Steve’s grandmother was attempting to set them up.

“Oh, so you’ve met him,” she said and he could hear the delight in her voice. “Isn’t he the sweetest?”

“Yes, we even went on a date the other night, so you don’t have to meddle Nana,” though he wished that she had tried earlier, like when he had been in high school, but since Tony had been in boarding school she wouldn’t have known that he had had a crush on Steve.

“That’s good to hear, you two complement one another very well,” she added and he knew that this was her seal of approval. “I will come up for the holidays, so don’t break  each other's hearts in the meantime.”

“I’ll try my best Nana, I’ll see you then.”

“I’ll see you then Steve,” she said and with that she hung up the phone and Steve sighed as he leaned into the chair.

Looking at the clock, he had been in the store for nearly ten hours, since they opened, and he didn’t want to be there any longer, it had been a long day, and he had things falling on him, so he just wanted a quiet evening. Getting up, he changed out of his uniform and into his regular clothes before walking out of the office and running into Sam.

“I’m leaving,” he said and Sam nodded.

“You’re just running away so that you wouldn’t have to deal with the ghost,” Sam said and honestly Steve didn’t care anymore. 

“Sam, you’re one of my closest friends, but I won’t hesitate to push you out of the way just to get away from this craziness,” he said and he was ready to do so. “Just make sure you close up the café, I’m sure Bucky will be leaving soon.”

“Yeah him and Nat said something about date night, as if they didn’t see enough of each other here during the day.”

“Don’t say that to them, they’ll lecture you about the differences between work and date nights, and that’s a conversation I don’t want to hear, and I don’t think that you’d want to hear it too.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Sam said and Steve just rolled his eyes. 

“Sure, bring it up with them, I’ll see you next year, because honestly it will probably feel like a whole year before they’re finished with you.”

With that he left the store, he knew what Sam was in for if he brought up the whole date and work relationship between Bucky and Natasha. He had gotten the lecture once when they had all worked together during college, it wasn’t something that he wanted to relive ever again. It was good that they set up boundaries in their relationship, especially between their jobs and their personal lives, it’s something that anyone in their position should do. 

* * *

Kicking Pepper out of his place had been the best decision he had made all  day, he had signed everything she had given him and had even given her the specs for a couple of projects. There was literally no reason why she should have been there as long as she had been, though he knew that she had been a little distracted after he had given her the key to the brownstone, probably plotting the proposal, but now he just wanted a bath and possibly something to eat. 

Instead he was sitting on his couch contemplating the bottle of pills, and whether he could take one without food, but he knew that it was a horrible idea to even try. They always felt like they would burn a hole through his stomach if he did, so he went with option two and just stared at them without moving. Who knew that getting hit in the face would be so painful, because he hadn’t and now he wished that he wouldn’t have ever known that pain in the first place. 

“I’m going to sue the hell out of that guy,” he  mumbled to himself.

“As you should sir,” his A.I. answered and Tony wasn’t in the mood to deal with speaking anymore, because it just made the pain worse. “I should advise you that Mr. Rogers is waiting outside, though his hands seem to be full hence he has not rung the bell.”

At that Tony sprung off the couch, knocking the pill bottle over in the process, before sprinting towards the front door and swinging it open startling Steve in the process. “Steve,” he said smiling, even though it hurt to do so. “I thought you were coming later.”

“How did you know I was here,” Steve asked him, “I didn’t even knock on the door.”

“I have cameras on the door, my A.I. tells me when someone is here that  way, I know who to avoid, trust me there’s always someone to avoid.”

“You’re not avoiding me,” Steve said a smile on his face that made Tony feel happy and safe, and crazy all at the same time. It was the good crazy, the kind that made him want to be with Steve for a long time.

“Trust me you’re the last person I would avoid, especially since you have food, and I need to take a pill right now,” he admitted, not adding the thoughts running through his head at the moment, because he wasn’t going to relive the hospital incident where he confessed to wanting to climb Steve like a tree, nope that wasn’t going to happen. “How was your day with the ghost?”

Steve sighed as he climbed the last step and entering the house, “Well, Nana said that she knows who it is, but I don’t really want to deal with it.”

“You shouldn’t worry too much about it,” he said grabbing some of the bags from Steve. “It’s just something that happens, honestly I don’t know if I believe it, but I let it go because if people wanted to believe in something like that, then it’s their prerogative....  anyway, why do you have so many bags?”

“Oh, I was just going to make you something to eat, or is that too much?”

“No that’s great, though I need something for now, because I am in pain.”

“There’s some cheese and crackers in the bag,” Steve said pointing to the bag in Tony’s hand, “You can eat that while I cook.”

“Thank you,” he said before pulling out his favorite cheese and bread. “How did you know?”

“I have my sources.”

“Of course, you do, you know everyone and they’re all spilling my secrets,” he grumbled before digging out the crackers. “I trust none of them anymore.”

“Sure Tony,” Steve said and if it weren’t for his injury, Tony would have kissed him right at that moment, but his face hurt and he didn’t want this as the memory of the first time they kissed.

“Do you mind if I take a quick shower,” Tony asked but Steve just waved him away.

“Go ahead, I’ll start cooking, but if you need anything don’t hesitate to call me, I don’t want you falling in the bathroom.”

“I will, don’t worry, but I’ll be fine, and I’ll wait until after I get out to take the pill too if it makes you feel better.”

Steve nodded, before Tony walked off to the sounds of the other man in the kitchen, it honestly wasn’t something he expected. No one, outside of his mother and Jarvis’s wife Ana, has ever cooked for him. Though it was a nice thought to think that even though they’ve been in this, was it a relationship yet? Anyway, in this thing for a week and they were already at this point, it was nice to have someone care about him in that way.

Honestly speaking, Steve wasn’t sure what he had been thinking when he had come over, he could have just gotten take out, but he wanted to make it something well something more. He remembered something earlier as he got ready to come over, it was because he had been thinking about Bucky and Natasha’s date nights, and how they made it a standing rule that they made homecooked meals for dates at least twice a month. So, he brought out his Nana’s cookbook, the one she had given him before college because he needed to remember how to make the dishes the same as she did, and pulled out his favorite recipe, it was the same one his mom used to make for him. Lasagna on Sundays were a family tradition, and while it wasn’t  Sunday , it was still a good homecooked meal.

By the time Tony had returned, the whole thing was already in the oven, and Steve put out the cheese and crackers, he hadn’t even realized that Tony had been gone for so long. Then he remembered that one time in basic training that he had gotten hurt, and a bath had been the one thing he had craved but couldn’t get. Though the sight of Tony’s flushed face looking happy and comfortable in sweats, or were they lose yoga pants, his brain was shorting out a little because they hugged Tony’s ass very well and he couldn’t stop staring.

“God that smells fantastic,” Tony said forcing Steve to actually look up and stop paying attention to Tony’s ass.

“I’m making my Nana’s lasagna, it’ll be ready in forty-five minutes, so we can sit and talk in the  meantime ,” and of course there was no way he’d get distracted if Tony was sitting.

“That sounds great, let's go sit in the living room, and you can tell me all about the ghost.”

Steve couldn’t help but groan at the words ghost, “Why do you even want to know about it, I doubt you actually believe in it.”

“Yeah but it’s fascinating, plus your grandmother used to tell me that it was an unrequited love, because she loved her husband.”

Pulling Tony towards the couch, “She said it was a guy she had known who had gotten shipped off to war, but that’s weird because she never talked about anyone who went to war and never came home.”

“Maybe she was giving them the dignity of loving her without telling their secret, if I’m not mistaken, she was pretty young when the war broke out.”

“Yeah, she was eight or nine, my grandfather was seven years older than she was, but they grew up together.”

“Seven years, wow, that’s something, but then again what am I saying, my dad is older than my mom. Did she tell you who it was?”

“No, but why do you want to know?”

“I was always curious, your grandmother is a fascinating lady, she was the first person to take me to Pride when I was a teenager, she had a girlfriend after your grandfather had passed away, and when I came home from school on holidays she always took me to these historical places that she remembered from when she was little.”

“She is great, she’s one of a kind, but I’m glad she’s in Florida, I know her arthritis was acting up and it pains me to see her in any kind of pain.”

“ Plus, can you imagine two guys fighting for her attention, all the while she wanted to date one of the girls down the street but knew that if she did her family would disown her, we could write a movie about her life.”

Steve laughed, he could imagine it, she always talked about how the boys were always trying to get her attention, even now at nearly ninety years old, she was one of a kind, he really didn’t know what he would do if he lost her.

“I’ll bring an album over so you could plot out this movie, because she would love it, especially since she was trying to set us up earlier.”

“Yeah, she never tried when we were kids, and she found out about my crush when you were away, but I told her that it was just a school kid thing, and it probably wouldn’t go anywhere... guess I was wrong about that.”

“I’m glad you were,” Steve said holding onto Tony’s hand. 

As far as a third sort of date went, this was a nice one, and one that he would remember it no matter what, even with Tony’s bruised face, and a ghost haunting the store. “How about, when you’re all healed, we go on a real date.”

“This isn’t real? I thought this was number three,” Tony said and Steve could see the sad look in Tony’s eyes.

“It is, but I want to take you out somewhere, at least to one of my favorite places.”

“Okay,” and Steve could see Tony’s face flush, it was adorable. “Plus, it would be nice to have a date where I wasn’t worried about you being hurt.”

“There’s that too... okay, so give me two weeks, hopefully this would be gone by then and we could do whatever you wanted to do, but,” Tony said making Steve stop. “We need to have a get together in between, because while you’ve met Pepper, and I’ve met some of your friends because they all work with you. It would be nice to have everyone meet.”

“Well I never got the chance to have a party for the store’s grand reopening, so we could do it there, it would be nice to close up early for that, especially since we’ve been have a good couple of months.”

“Okay, then it’s settled, we’ll do that, and I’ll invite Pepper and  Rhodey who you haven’t met I’m sure, and whoever else would want to come, and I guess we could do it sometime before our next outdoors date if that’s what we call it now.”

“I’ll get to planning, and who knows, maybe I could convince Nana to come up here and we could get her blessing.”

“Okay,” Tony said as Steve took his hand, thinking that maybe they could kiss that day too. Yeah, he was going to, he would plan it out and everything... not that anything in his life would go according to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ghost is Colonel Phillips 
> 
> Also, my grandparents are actually seven years apart in age, this was common especially after WWI, because a lot of men had died so there was actually less men than women in some regions, so it was actually normal for older men and younger women to get married. (a little history for you)

**Author's Note:**

> Yes? No? Should I continue? Comment and tell me if you want more, like who Clint was flirting with, or the future of Steve and Tony's relationship, why Natasha is the best person to run the kids department, is Steve's grandmother going to show up, and what exactly is Rhodey trying to keep from Carol?


End file.
